Re: Sylvestre Marron/ Leonora Osuna

When I first began doing this research (abt 1975) I searched as many records as possible.I did find my ancestor, Juan Marron, mentioned one time, marrying Juana Blasa Morales in 1856 in Los Angeles. The info was for her siblings and parents. At that time I was disappointed because there was no information abt him givenand, at that time, I did not know much about him. I knew about the San Diego Marrons and also wondered why they were not in Northup's books.

I have learned that whether one uses info from Northrup or Pablo Martinez's work, it is important to not just take the given info and accept as correct.Today with the internet it is too easy to find someone's info about a certain surname from an area and I am amazed that sometimes the info is wrong.How do I know this?Because I go to primary sources ie the actual mission records and look at the entry and sometimes the info indicates something very different than someone's posting on the internet.

I suspect Northrup had so much material she could not possibly get every Californio family included.I recently heard that a Vol. 3 was out and I do not know if the Marrons were included in that.

As for the Altamiranos, I was just trying to keep one's mind open to other Altamirano sources other than direct from Sonora.Sometimes when one is just starting out doing their family research it is too easy to just grab at the first thing that seems to work.When I first started my research I had no idea it would lead me into 30 plus years of Antigua California research.Now at this point I am starting to put together the families from both Californias in to one database-fitting pieces of a big puzzle together.Since so many really important records for Baja 1697-1800 are MISSING it is quite a puzzle to deal with.

Marie Northrup did an incredible job on her works and she worked with what she had available.It is important when using her books or Guia Familiar, for example, to also find the original church entry.There are family groups where the children listed included not a sibling but an uncle as a sibling. I never use Guia Familiar as the last word as I found too many mistakesand, more important, omissions!!! These omissions were found by actually looking at the microfilmed mission records.Now Pablo Matinez had access to, for example. the San Antonio and La Paz (BCS) church records yet in his book many entries are not listed.

About 20 years ago a woman wrote me about her family's relationship to the Marrons of San Diego.The pedigree she sent had been obtained from a researcher.She had paid a professional to do the research.To my dismay, among the children was listed a couple of individuals who were NOT children of this couple but siblings of the listed Marron father.For several years I was confused bythe misinformation, and finally got it all organized years later.

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it....:)I hope that doors are opened for others and I am always looking for more information.